


The Heart of Saturday Night

by OrangeLady



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3834331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrangeLady/pseuds/OrangeLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Steve fell asleep on Bucky. And one time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

They are just kids, but New York winter doesn’t give two shits about that. Steve is fifteen years old and gets pneumonia so bad he misses school for three weeks. Bucky is just fourteen, he’s  a year behind, and he’s worried out of his mind. Steve’s mom is also sick with pneumonia, but she has to work, or else there will be even bigger problems ahead. There is rent to be paid, food to buy, and so on.

So Mrs. Barnes says, “What’s an other kid in the house? This ’un doesn’t eat like a horse like the other ’uns, and Steven is so nice and polite it’ll be a pleasure to have him as company for a while”. So Steve gets to stay at the Barnes' apartment, gets fed Mrs. Barnes' meatloaf and jelly, and sleeps in Bucky’s room.

They put an extra mattress on the floor for him. It’s cold in the room, as it is in the whole building. Steve coughs hard and shakes with fever and cold, but to be honest Bucky doesn’t mind it all that much.

“You freezing?” Bucky asks one night. He hasn’t slept a wink, too busy listening to his friend’s raspy breath and staring at the fluorescent dials on his wrist watch. It’s ten past three in the morning.

“Yeah, but it ain’t so bad,” Steve stammers.

“Quit lying, you ain’t fooling nobody. Wanna sleep on the bed? It’s warmer, buddy. And I promise I won’t get sick if you do.”

Steve hesitates a bit, but Bucky scoots over so they both can fit into the narrow bed. He crooks his fingers at Steve to come hither, and he winks flirtatiously. It’s ridiculous, but it works. Steve chuckles weakly, but agrees to climb into the bed.

He lies down on his side with his back to Bucky. He slings an arm over Steve, pulls him closer so he’s flat against Bucky’s chest. Steve might be a year older, but Bucky is already taller and bigger. And Steve is boiling warm with fever.

“You’re like a hot water bottle,” he mumbles. Steve laughs quietly and coughs, and Bucky smiles into the slightly sweaty crook of his neck.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Steve whispers.

“Shut up,” Bucky whispers back and blushes in the dark. “I’ll have you know I was asked out by six girls on Valentine’s. Beat that if you can.”

They sleep like clubbed baby seals the entire night. Mrs. Barnes finds them like that the next morning. She doesn’t say anything about it, only to Mrs. Rogers when she sees her the next day, but she smiles proudly. That’s her son alright, the best and the most caring boy there is.

Mrs. Barnes thinks Steve is lucky to have him. She tells Bucky that a few weeks later, when Mrs. Rogers has collapsed and been brought to the hospital with her untreated pneumonia. She dies a couple of days later.


	2. Chapter 2

The room they are hiring from Mr Gottlieb is too small to fit more than one bed into. They take turns in sleeping in the one bed they have and the extra mattress. It’s the same one as the one at Mrs. Barnes' old house, and by now it’s essentially the one true home for both of them. If Steve gets the bed a little more often, Bucky doesn’t mind. In winter time they don’t bother getting the mattress out, and they huddle together on the bed for warmth. They do that other times as well, but only when Steve is in a bad way.

This Friday night Steve is home alone, too tired from work at the factory to go out, and Bucky tries very hard not to worry too much about it. He himself is out with some of his workbuddies from the docks and some gals, and it’s okay. He’s got his eyes on this nice-looking gal, Patricia, but his heart isn’t really in it.

He goes home at one. He struggles with fitting the key into the lock, and in the end Steve opens the door for him from the inside.

“You’re home early,” he says.

“Yeah, I only had a sandwich for lunch, but I didn’t think four beers would get me this stupid.” It’s the truth, but when he says it it sounds like a bad excuse. “Patricia went home with Pete, you know Pete I told you about? That lucky bastard. But it’s probably for the best, I’d only made an ass of myself playin’ footy with her.” Bucky laughs and sits down on one of their two chairs. He tries to kick his shoes off, but without success.

“So now you’ve come home to be an ass with me?” Steve quips. “Hey, you want help with those?” Bucky nods, and Steve sits on the floor untying his shoestrings. Bucky tries and fails to think of anything nicer to come home to.

“I’m always an ass when I’m with you,” he says. “That’s why you love me.” And right then and there, he doesn’t care that he probably sounded way too serious. Steve looks up and swallows like he has something stuck in his throat.

“I was just going to bed. Do you mind?”

“Nah, me too. Jesus, I could sleep standing up right now.”

“I think the mattress will be comfier. Let me just get it out for you,” Steve says and smirks a little. He puts his hands on Bucky’s knees and heaves himself up.

“Nah, too tired to bother with it. Can’t we both take the bed tonight? I’m so sloshed I won’t move an inch, I swear.” Steve nods quietly.

Bucky pulls his shirt and sweater over his head in one go, shucks off his slacks and drops them onto the floor. He’ll deal with it tomorrow. Steve is more careful, unbuttons his grey shirt and folds it neatly over a chair. Bucky lays down on the bed and watches him. There are fading bruises down his left side from when he got in a brawl a week or so ago. ‘Landed a couple of punches, got the double back,’ as Steve had put it. He’s too skinny, almost like a kid, but his hands and face seem to belong to a much older and bigger man.

Steve lays down at the edge of the bed, his back to Bucky. Bucky turns so they are back to back. It’s safer that way, he reasons, and if they happen to lean into each other it’s going to be quite innocent. It’s warmer that way, their room is ice cold except in summer, and Bucky doesn’t mind being Steve’s personal space heater.

And sure enough, Steve settles his smaller body against Bucky almost as soon as he has pulled the blankets properly over them both and switched off the lamp. Bucky sees it as an honor, as he always has done. Nobody but him gets to be this close to Steve.

Steve falls asleep in a minute or two, but Bucky stays awake a little longer. Where Steve’s shoulderblades poke into Bucky’s back his skin feels electric. He wonders drunkenly what would happen if he just this once reached out his hand and stroked down Steve’s cheek. Would he blush? Would he kiss back?


	3. Chapter 3

Under October night skies in the Alps, they have no choice but to cling close to each other. They always seem to be cold. It forces them closer, and really, Bucky should complain, but he can’t. For every new bloody place they are thrown into, he is baffled that the stars in the night sky look just the same as they did back home.

The war drives them all crazy. Dernier keeps muttering in French and not bothering with English unless it’s a life-or-death situation. Steve is effectively suicidal, throwing himself into every fight head first with that stupid heroic grin and star-spangled ass. Falsworth has taken to saying ‘fancy that’, no matter what happens to him, be it an extra ration of baked beans or having to execute enemy soldiers in cold  blood. Dum Dum keeps his good mood up at all times, which has to be considered batshit crazy, given the circumstances.

And Bucky, hiding up in trees with his rifle, is crazy scared. He tries to have everybody’s backs at all times, but there is only so much one man can do. Also, there’s something chafing inside of him, something that Arnim Zola did to him. He has no idea what that is, and that scares him too.

Come night time, they put their bedrolls on top each other’s and put their blankets and jackets in thick layers. If they do that, they can almost be comfortable through the cold nights. It also means that they have a perfectly good reason to snuggle close and warm each other up. Morita growls at him that he should share, but Bucky never does. Captain America is his own personal hero and sharing is for commies.

He knows that Steve enjoys his body warmth, and if Bucky is perfectly honest, he doesn’t mind Steve’s new genetically engineered industrial grade heat-production either.

“Do you ever wonder what we’d be doing right now if there never was a war?” Bucky asks one night when they lay side by side on the too small bedroll. They are somewhere north of Milan. Frost is in the air.

“Nah. Sleeping in a real bed, maybe,” Steve says.

“Such imagination," Bucky chuckles. "You really don’t think about it, huh?”

“Nah, but it seems you do. How ‘bout you tell me ‘bout it?” So Bucky does.

“Well, it’s October, so if Ma was still alive she’d be busy making apple pies and apple sauce. Remember those pies? Paradise on Earth, if you ask me. If I hadn’t joined the army, I figure I would’ve gotten a job as a mechanic, you know, good hours and decent pay. You’d part-time for a newspaper, making drawings and comics, and maybe save up for evening classes at an art school. No more factory work, no more asthma attacks, you hear me?”

“I don’t have asthma any more,” Steve mumbles. His breath is slowing down, and Bucky just knows he’ll be asleep in a minute or less.

“Shut up,” Bucky retorts. “We would’ve found a two room apartment, one with a view over the Hudson, so you could draw it. We’d go out drinking and dancing every Friday with some nice gals. And yeah, if you hadn’t found yourself the right dancing partner, I would’ve taught you myself. You better believe it. If you’d be willing to settle for me, there’d be no need to find a dame for dancing." He pauses. "Hey, you awake?”

When there is no answer, Bucky squirms around until he’s resting half on top of his friend, cheek on his shoulder, listening to his steady breath. Bucky looks up at his friend, and wonders at how still and delicate he really isn’t any longer. His body might be a brand new, unbreakable force, but his face still looks like it always did. Maybe a bit fuller, and a little bit more tired. Maybe his new body suits his face better.

“If we were still at home, I don’t think I’d be so scared all the time.” Bucky is whispering now, as nobody needs to hear it. “I wouldn’t be so scared to lose my mind. Or you. But I dunno.”

Bucky wants to touch the thin skin under Steve’s eyes, and kiss his temples, the side of his nose, the corners of his mouth. He wants to be gentle with Steve, as nobody was when he was smaller, and nobody will now that he’s bigger. But he won’t. Maybe some day, some day when they have both have survived the war, Bucky will be brave enough.


	4. Chapter 4

The future might be all shiny and nice, but the nightmares of the past don’t quit for one minute of one hour of one night. Bucky wakes up screaming and fighting the horrors burning in his head. There are always new things, new memories, and they all seem to be so real and sharp. He dreams of the Winter Soldier slitting the throats of exile Soviets in a train station and pushing their bodies onto the tracks. There is Sergeant Barnes sniping Nazi soldiers in Schwarzwald. The soldiers were just kids, and in the snowstorm, they had no idea where the shots were fired from. There are blurry images of Bucky, as a kid, holding onto Steve and praying that that asthma attack won’t be as bad as it seems and counting the seconds.

Tonight he falls from a train. Tonight they screw a metal arm to him and take his name away.

The room is unfamiliar when he’s jolted awake. He muffles his cries by biting hard into his flesh hand. Sweaty sheets are plastered to his body.

It’s better when Steve is away on a mission, because then Bucky can scream as much as he wants and pace the apartment until dawn, if need be. Not that Steve ever is gone for long. The longest Fury convinced him to stay away was three days straight. Those were some hard three days for Bucky, but at least he didn’t have to hide his nightmares from anyone. When he is there, Steve worries, and that alone makes everything so much worse.

But tonight Steve is there, grabbing his head between both hands and saying his name over and over. He is still not sure that Bucky or James are his real names. Deep down he knows he doesn’t have a name. He has a number. He is a soldier.

“It’s alright,” Steve repeats. “You’ll be alright. I’m here. I’m here for you.” Steve tries to keep his voice calmer than he is, but he knows instinctively.

“Нет, я здесь не место c тобой. Ты не знаешь, кто я. Я только зимной солдат, я не...” slips out of him. He doesn’t know it’s in Russian until he has said it. “Извините... I’m sorry, I don’t…”

“Shut up. I do know you, Buck,” Steve says, mouth close to his left ear. “I told you I’m with you ‘til the end, so tough luck getting rid of me.”

As if to prove that fact, Steve pushes him back on the bed and pins him down with his own body. He strokes Bucky’s wet cheek with the back of his fingers. So he’s been crying. Huh.

“You are in your own room in Stark Tower in New York. It’s 2015, and we’re both alive, you and I. Who would’ve thought I’d live to be ninety years old?” Steve continues. “You were dreaming, Bucky. Just dreaming.”

It helps. Something about skin against skin and Steve’s never-ceasing assurances, makes him remember that, yeah, maybe this is somewhere he did belong once. Somewhere he could belong. It makes him feel like Jell-O. The pressure in his chest changes from terror to something else entirely, and suddenly there’s another reason to be short of breath.

Steve still has him in a tight hug, an iron grip on the back of his neck and around his waist, and a knee wedged between his thighs. He’s is still mumbling, although he’s almost asleep.

“Do you think you can sleep now?” he asks, and Bucky can feel his mouth move against his throat. He shakes his head. He’s is still shot full of adrenaline and half-remembered ghosts. Sleep is going to be impossible for a good long while. He won’t dare. So he lies there and enjoys being held, in secret. Not that he could move under Steve’s hands, even if he wanted to.

They have switched sides, and Bucky is not sure when that happened. It is Steve who’s warming him up and keeping him safe. Bucky is clinging to him now. But he might have always done that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: "No, I have no place here with you. You don't know who I am. I'm just the Soldier, I'm not..."/"I'm sorry..." 
> 
> If the Russian is wrong in any way, I apologize (but blame Google Translate for everything).


	5. Chapter 5

The metal arm is off and there is a gaping, itching space where it used to be. Bucky looks at it in the mirror and it’s so strange. He feels awkward and incomplete, and here he’s just home and safe in Steve’s apartment. Sam Wilson followed him to and from Stark’s workshop. At first it was strange being with Sam Wilson. He was Steve’s buddy, not his. But Sam is and was too practical and too socially competent to give a damn about that. Sam hasn’t commented on anything remotely emotional, but suggested he should make them dinner and stay the night with him. Steve is away on a mission, and for some reason Bucky isn’t allowed to be by himself for one second.

“Can’t have you starve, you one-armed bandit,” he tells him. “It would be fun to watch you cook with one hand, but I would go to Hell for it.”

“You’re still going to Hell, Sam. We both are.”

So he ransacks the kitchen to make stew, while Bucky stands in front of a mirror and is weirded out by the empty hole where an arm is supposed to be. What would Steve say if he sees him like this? What is it that he wouldn’t say?

Bucky tries to distract himself by putting on one of the movies from Sam’s mile long list. Gladiator. It seemed like a straight-forward historic war-movie, but Hells no. Bucky starts crying after twenty minutes, and Bucky doesn’t cry to movies.

Sam plops down on the couch on his right side and hands him a bowl of stew and rice. He has arranged the pills Bucky is supposed to take on top of the food in a smiley face. Bucky’d laugh at it if he could. Sam doesn’t say anything about the tears running down his face and into the food, but he edges close so they sit shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh.

At ten past midnight, a motorcycle stop outside on the street, and then there are familiar sounding steps in the stairway. Sam puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him sitting down in the sofa. It’s one day earlier than Fury said. Steve is still wearing his uniform when he quietly slips in through the door. Bucky pauses the movie and wipes his face on the back of his one hand.

“Hey Cap. There’s food in the kitchen if you want it,” Sam greets him. “How did the mission go?”

“Nah, ate on the way here. Mission went okay.” Steve takes the duffelbag off his shoulder and leans the shield against the shoerack. He pauses, and Bucky can feel Steve’s eyes rake over his body. “When do you get it back,” he asks quietly.

“Stark Junior says he’ll have the replacement by tomorrow. So today I’m stumped.” Bucky shrugs, and tries to grin.

“Oh, ha ha. But don’t worry, Tony is going to get you a new arm, and you’ll forget you ever had anything else. Say what you want about the man, but he’s a genius. You’ll be alright. He helped getting your brain back together, so what’s an arm to a guy like that?” Steve says and smirks. The smirk doesn’t last long, though. “Buck, have you been…?”

“Crying? Yeah. It’s the stupid movie we’re watching. Gladiator.”

“Oh yeah, that one. Sam here had me in tears about fifteen minutes in, he still teases me for it. I guess it hits close to home, you know. Also, the wife and kid, am I right?” Bucky nods. “I’m just going to change into something comfier, I’ll be right back.”

He returns wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and slumps down on the sofa right next to Bucky. He still smells like sweat and C-4 and something that hasn’t changed in the last ninety years, and that’s okay.

They watch the rest of Gladiator all three together, although it gets harder and harder for Bucky to focus on it. Because Steve is slowly sinking down and sideways in the couch, eyes fluttering, and Bucky knows him well enough to know that he’ll be asleep any minute now. He watches his friend in the dim light from the screen. Finally Steve leans into Bucky’s shoulder, breathing slow and warm onto his chest.

Steve falls asleep like that, and Bucky lets him. He helps filling the hole where his arm was. In his sleep, Steve puts his hand on his belly. It’s heavy and burning hot through his T-shirt. It makes Bucky feel grounded, being wedged inbetwen his two friends, like this once the nightmares won’t be back if he too fell asleep.

Sam smiles softly and drapes a blanket over them, before he sneaks off to sleep on Steve’s bed.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s past midnight when Bucky comes back home from his date. It’s his first in forever. He’s not quite sure how that date happened, but Natasha Romanov was involved. Also threats.

The girl’s name was Sophie. She’s blonde, tall and blessedly non-SHIELD, or so Natasha told him. She bought him the first drink on condition he bought her the next. The details may have been different, but all in all, dating seemed to have stayed the same like in the good old days. Not that he remembers much of that, but Steve has told him.

The couple of drinks had progressed into dinner at a Chinese restaurant, which actually was very nice. Sophie turned out to be a hairdresser and she talked enough for both of them, intelligent babble and funny remarks that Bucky laughed loudly at. If this had been seventy five years ago and Bucky had been who he was then, he would have fallen in love in an instant, brought her home and fucked her silly. Heck, he would have made her breakfast in the morning and told her to call him later. But here in the future, he can’t help but to think how her hair is too long, her eyes have the wrong shade of blue and that she’s just... not for him. He doesn’t want her snarky comments and dirty jokes, he wants Steve’s shocked gasps and admonishing chuckles. Bucky will take his holier-than-thou wise-ass one-liners any day. He doesn’t need fancy drinks and dinner with this nice stranger, he doesn’t even want to have sex with her. 

It was a startling realization. Because he hasn’t had a decent fuck as himself, as James Buchanan Barnes, since the damned ice age. Men have lived full lives and died during the period he hasn’t gotten laid. 

So after the drinks and dinner, he ducked out, making various thinly disguised excuses. Sophie had taken it like a champ, but made sure not to give him her phone number or even say ‘see you later’. He walked all the way home.

The apartment is dark, but there is a thin sliver of light under Steve’s door. He knocks and edges the door open just a little.

“Hey,” Bucky whispers. If he had the courage he’d ask if he could sleep in Steve’s room, like in the good old days. Bucky really doesn’t want to spend another night alone, even if it means spending many sleepless hours on the rug beside Steve’s bed. 

Steve puts down his book, looks up and smiles. It’s a strained smile. He’s obviously trying to hide something from him, but Steve should know better than to think that he can hide stuff from him. So Bucky tilts his head to the side and smirks with his mouth slightly open. It is his trademark flirty grin, and it has and always will irk Steve to no end. Bucky is pleased with himself. His primary mission since childhood has always been to make Steve blush.

“You’re back early,” he says. “How did it go?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Good, I think. Sophie is a real firecracker. But I don’t know if I’m a dating kind of guy anymore.”

“That’s okay,” Steve says. Which is a lie. Steve was not only a witness to, but was strangely invested in the drawn-out process of getting ready for said date. He’d helped tying up his hair nice, letting him borrow one of his shirts since Bucky doesn’t have any of his own yet, and so on. He even got to use Steve’s cologne, which was a bad move. It smells too much like Steve. And having that smell on him is so intimate and personal that Bucky has randomly flushed and felt pangs of guilt all night. 

“Hey, you’re good guy, Bucky. That Sophie you went out with is a lucky lady. If she thought the date wasn’t good enough, she’s the one missing out.”

“Yeah, what a package I am. One-armed, brainwashed by both Soviets and HYDRA, fresh out of the psych ward. Haven’t dated, kissed or had sex properly since ninteen-fortythree,” he replies, trying to make it sound like a joke.

“You’re always gonna be good enough for me,” Steve says lamely. 

“If only you were a dame, Steve,” he sighs back. It’s meant as a joke too, but Steve gets that kicked puppy-look in his eyes. 

“I was just going to sleep anyway,” Steve mutters. 

Bucky chuckles and slips inside the room, closing the door behind him. “You were waiting up for me, weren’t you, just like you used to.” Steve opens his mouth to protest, but Bucky won’t have it. “Oh shut up. You’re adorable, it’s one of the reasons why I love you.” The last few words get stuck in his throat. It’s harder to say when he actually means it. He sighs. “Is it okay if I sleep in here tonight,” he asks. “I’m just so tired.”

Steve pats the bed and Bucky really doesn’t have to be invited twice. He sits down beside him and starts unbuttoning the shirt.

“You have no idea how I have missed this,” Steve says. “No matter how bad it got I always had you to go home to, even during the war you were there, and when you… and before you came back. I felt alone for real, you know?”

“And here I was thinking I was just your own failed wingman. Tell me again, how many of the dates I arranged that ditched you within the first fifteen minutes?” he chuckles. It’s something the old Bucky would have said. They were best friends and brothers-in-arms before and during the war. He just wishes he could remember if that was all Steve was to him back then. But he gets the feeling that this stupid infatuation is as old as he is.

“Never just that, Bucky,” Steve says gravely. “I guess I never got how much I rely on you before you were gone. If only I had realized earlier that I…” 

“I think I’ll go sleep in my room,” Bucky breaks him off. Steve is his friend, and if he continues like this, there’s no way that he’ll be able to not open his own bleeding heart and make it awkward. Of course Steve wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but to Bucky there would be no way back to what they have just started being again. And there is simply no way that Steve would feel the same. This is not some alternative timeline or strange universe. Captain America is simply not gay. Steve Rogers is another question, but Bucky has known him too long to have a single doubt in his mind. There’s no way he could be, and even if so, Steve’s had long enough time to do something about it if he had any feelings for him, which he hasn’t.

Bucky makes to slide off the bed, but Steve grabs his arm before he manages to do so.

“Buck, are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure, I just didn’t know that you’d talk so much.”

Steve releases him like he’s burned his hand. He looks sad in a way that only makes Bucky feel even more guilty and hopeless. 

“Sorry. I’ll shut up. Won’t happen again,” he promises. “Will you come back here?” 

Bucky wants to be as far away and as close as possible at the same time, and there’s no way he can say no to Steve like that.

“Okay. I have to give you back your shirt anyhow.”

As he shrugs off the borrowed shirt, he can sense Steve trying his darndest not to look. It’s one of Steve’s nicer checkered shirts, and he thinks — hopes — that he’s been able to not look like the nice proper gentleman straight from the 1940’s that Steve looks like in it, and more like he’d pass as a native in the 21st century. The shirt fits him surprisingly well, considering that Steve is at least a foot taller than him now. Bucky slowly strips down to his boxers, folding both his own jeans and Steve’s shirt on the dresser. He usually sleeps like that, but with Steve so close, he would feel too naked. So he steals one of Steve’s T-shirts.

“I might not give this one back though,” he confesses, once he has pulled the thin cotton over his head. Steve stares at him like he badly wants to say something, cheeks pink. But he keeps his promise and stays quiet. Bucky crawls under the blanket beside him and Steve turns off the bed lamp.

“Your new arm looks really good. You shouldn’t hide it,” he murmurs, and then quickly adds a strained “Sorry. I’ll shut up. Good night.”

Bucky can’t hold out any longer, he reaches out with his flesh arm and strokes Steve’s neck. He feels rather than sees Steve shiver under his touch. 

“Good night,” he whispers.

But Steve just won’t lay off. Just when Bucky knows he really should pull back, Steve catches his hand in his own. He presses it against the side of his neck, tangling their fingers together. It’s so warm, and Bucky can feel his pulse beat fast and unsteady under his skin.

He turns over, so they lie face to face in the dark, and presses Bucky’s hand flat against his chest. Steve breath comes out uneven, so there’s not much left for him to do.

Bucky leans in the few last inches and puts his lips against Steve’s. They are warm and dry and tastes like Steve smells, only stronger. The kiss is in self-defense. Maybe it was the plan all along, to make Steve pull back in disgust. Maybe it’s just what Bucky has wanted to do since forever. Maybe it’s what he needs to be able to move on. 

It doesn’t work. Because Steve opens his mouth in a heartbeat, and kisses back. He kisses back with a wet enthusiasm that makes Bucky’s brain go blank.

Steve hooks his leg over Bucky’s, keeping him pinned down and dragging him closer with one hand on his neck and one on the small of his back, until they are pressed flush together. It’s impossible to not notice how hard Steve already is.

“Can I say something now?” he croaks.

“No.”

“Can I…”

“Just shut up and do it.”

Steve’s hand immediately slides under the T-shirt. Fingers dig into the flesh of his back and drags down, under his boxers, until Steve has a proper grip on his butt. 

“Is it okay?” he rasps. Bucky would’ve told him to shut up, but he is too busy gasping for air with his mouth open against Steve’s cheek. That’s when Steve uses his leverage to grind their bodies together. He flips them over so Bucky is on top, and forcefully arches his body up. Bucky clings on for dear life and hopes it never ends.

But it does, almost embarrassingly fast. He yelps as he comes, even though he tries to keep it in. Steve pants loudly in his ear, sweet little ‘I’ve-got-yous’.

Bucky hitches himself up with his robot hand, and reaches down between their bodies. Steve’s cock is silky warm in his hand. Afraid that he’ll start talking again, Bucky kisses him for all he’s got while he jerks him off. It doesn’t take long for him either. He shivers, bites back a moan, and that’s it.

“Can I just say that I…”

“Shut up. You can… we can do that tomorrow.” 

The orange light from the street lamps leaves Steve’s body as a sharp silhouette. Finally there is a chance to do what he had wanted to for so very long. Bucky palms 

Steve’s cheek, traces tendons and muscles down his throat, the expanse of soft skin on his chest and belly, the solidity of his hipbone. Steve doesn’t reciprocate much, but it is just as good. If he did, it might have been too much. Instead Bucky feels him smile in the dark when they kiss.

Neither of them says another word until the sun rises and peeks through Steve’s flimsy white curtains. Neither of them sleeps a wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks! I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if so please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Title after the song by beloved Tom Waits.


End file.
